


Messy

by whateverrrrwhatever



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Bad Cooking, Derek Hale Deserves Nice Things, Established Relationship, Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, Stiles is trying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:15:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24977494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whateverrrrwhatever/pseuds/whateverrrrwhatever
Summary: "Yeah. I wanted to make it for you. To help you relax a little. Give you something to be happy about.” Stiles gestures at the scene around them. “Things didn’t exactly go as planned.”
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 16
Kudos: 105
Collections: Eternal Sterek Discord Writing Events





	Messy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DearDaisy (Sunsetdaydreams)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunsetdaydreams/gifts).



> I... broke the rules and I'm sorry. I couldn't get this under 500 words. I just couldn't do it. Thanks to [dottie_wan_kenobi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottie_wan_kenobi) for helping me try.
> 
> Thanks Sunset Daydreams for this too-inspiring prompt! I hope you like it.

“Stiles,” Derek says through gritted teeth. His eyebrows are furrowed at an angle that usually suggests impending bodily harm. “What are you doing?”

“Me? Nothing,” Stiles shrugs. He keeps his eyes focused on Derek’s glare and definitely, absolutely does not look anywhere else. Not at the tower of dishes threatening to escape over the edge of the sink. Not at the burnt mornay sauce crusted all over the stovetop. Especially not at the garbage bag he’s holding, a gruesome rip at the bottom belching days-old coffee grounds and strawberry hulls all over the hardwood floor.

He’s pretty sure that the impressively putrid brown slop on the toe of his shoe used to be lettuce -- probably from the pack dinner they’d ordered in three days ago, pizza and the salad Derek insisted on every time, eaten standing up as they bent over maps and Stiles’s laptop late into the night -- but now is not really the best time to investigate.

“Nothing?” This time, Derek takes his time looking around the kitchen, and Stiles can’t help but cringe a little. He knows how bad it looks.He knows the melted spatula is still on the counter, discarded in a scatter of spilled breadcrumbs, and his first two attempts at the mornay are still sitting on the range. The house still smells vaguely smoky, even though Stiles opened all the windows and turned the hood fan as high as it would go.

“At the moment? Absolutely nothing.” It’s true. He’s just standing there, wearing a stupid novelty apron and waiting for Derek to react to this latest fuck-up.

Really, it’s that the past two weeks have been one a catastrophe after another. This particular string of bad luck started with a burst pipe flooding a second-floor bathroom, ruining the bookshelf below and necessitating calls to the plumber and insurance company. The pipe was shortly joined by a swarm of minor annoyances. Derek’s jacket had gone missing and his phone with it. A tense full moon argument had led to Scott, Erica, and Isaac destroying several windows and an armchair that had belonged to Talia, found in a forgotten storage unit while Derek was working on the house. Lydia and Jackson had broken up, again and with extra acrimony, which meant both that Jackson was being a particularly sulky asshole and that the pack was down a researcher and strategist when he managed to make enemies of the new alpha out toward Mendocino way before Scott had even had a chance to formally introduce himself.

Derek hasn’t been handling any of it well. With each new disaster - major and minor - he’s sleeping poorly, tossing and turning until he gives up and Stiles finds him in the living room hunched over a book, dark circles under his eyes, slumped in the pool of light from a single lamp, or finds him gone, clothes waiting folded on the back porch for him to return from a long midnight run through the woods. He’s also reverted back to his old habits, snapping at the betas and withdrawing from everyone around him. Even Stiles, despite-- whatever it is they are now, something too fragile and new to survive the weight of a name, since Stiles moved back home and they re-entered each other’s orbit on a collision course.

Derek sighs and looks up at the ceiling for a moment, sucking at his teeth, gathering himself. Stiles bites his lip and braces for whatever’s coming, trying to figure out the fastest way he can grab his keys and get the hell out when Derek tells him to go and stay gone, instead of standing there in a pile of rotten food and sodden paper towels in the ruined kitchen, clutching a broken garbage bag like a fool.

The oven timer goes off before Derek gets a chance.

“Let me just--” Stiles pivots to find a safe place for the trash bag before he gives up and just sets it on the pile of spilled garbage, extricating his toes from the heap. He washes his hands as fast as humanly possible and swoops over to the oven, yanking open the door.

“Is that… mac and cheese?”

Stiles risks a glance at Derek as he pulls the molten casserole from the oven. He doesn’t look angry anymore, so much as exhausted and a little bit lost.

“Yeah.” Stiles sets the dish on the stove and steps back, tugging off his oven mitt. “You’ve been a little... on edge. I thought it might help. You know, comfort food. I know carbs and cheese aren’t exactly the healthiest, but. You said this was your favorite when you were a kid.”

“I did,” Derek agrees. He takes a step closer to Stiles, then another, skirting the garbage mess and drawing up beside him. “You remembered.”

“Yeah. I wanted to make it for you. To help you relax a little. Give you something to be happy about.” Stiles gestures at the scene around them. “Things didn’t exactly go as planned.”

“Most things don’t,” Derek says quietly. He brings a hand to cup Stiles’s jaw, running a thumb over his cheekbone. “There’s flour on your face.”

“There’s flour pretty much everywhere, so, yeah.” Stiles licks his lips, swallowing hard. Derek watches him, moves in closer. “That tracks.”

“I’m happy about you.” Derek says, low and soft, just for the two of them to hear. “You make me happy.”

“Oh,” Stiles says, but anything else he might have said is lost when Derek pulls him into a kiss, sweet and slow, and when Stiles wraps his arms around Derek to coax him closer, Derek relaxes into him, easy as that.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Come find me on [tumblr](https://whateverrrrwhatever.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/whateverrrrisay).


End file.
